The study of a hotel to be built under the mild climate of Madeira Island, Portugal, is presented. The program DOE-2.1E was used for the thermal load simulation, using as climatic input a Typical Year file constructed for this case. The simulation for the base building showed low heating loads and high cooling loads, of which a very important fraction derives from solar gains.
Calculation of design cooling loads is of critical concern to designers of HVAC systems. The work reported here has been carried out under a joint ASHRAE-CIBSE research project to compare design cooling calculation methods. Peak cooling loads predicted by the ASHRAE heat balance method are compared with these predicted by a number of implementations of the admittance method using different window models. The results presented show the general trends in overprediction or underpredictiori of peak load. Particular attention is given to different window modelling practices.